Eureka weekly sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1887-1902, 1887-11-19
DEATH or TOM NIXON.
One of n PAIRING anl
Spirits Of Early Nevada MINING
life DEPARTS I'm Peace.

| VNe vi thC Soht"A
Spirits Of Early Nevada MINING
Life Departs I'm Peace.
In Belmont, Nevada, October ~, 1887,
of pneumonia, Thomas Nixon, a native OF
Ireland, aged 56 years.
The above notice appeared in the last
issue of the Belmont Courier. Tom Nixon
was one Of the earliest prospectors and
miners in Eureka, Nevada, He was a
| dark, thick-set man, weighing from lou to
| l60 pounds, and about as fearless, active,
tough and strong as 'they make Them
He was a steady worker, paid his debts and
provided for his wife and children well,
| but when in liquor he seldom sobered be.
fore breaking some ones ribs, nose or head
with the iron-like fist at the end of his arm.
He worked on Ruby Hill as a miner,
| where there was a faction of wiry Cornish
boys and another of Irish lads, who sell
dom allowed payday to pass without a
| shindy. In different brawls Tom Nixon
| Jimmy Ticket, Bing Williams and Jimmy
| Trevellyan, and on more than one occasion
he has been double banked" and piled on
by the score, and sometimes shot and cut.
but he was never in~capacitated from work
for a single day. 1t was the general ex-
pectation of all his friends that Eureka
county was too small for him to live long
in the presence of the large number of
mortal enemies he had made, and they
often begged and implored him for the
sake of his wife and children to leave the
county, but he would merely laugh at them
and say if lie had been born to be killed it
would have occurred long before. The last
f~isticuff he had was an impromptu prize.
fight. Bob Mellon, one of the most des-
perate characters that ever lived in this
State, was Toms second. Mellon orce had
a fight in San Francisco, in a dark room,
where both men went in nearly naked with
knives. Bob came out with his back
slashed and his face nearly cut in two.
The other man was packed out dead. In
knives across a clothes line. with the left
merely samples of Bob's record. The
Vigilantes Of Virginia, Eureka, Reno and
Truckee often chad it in" strong for Bob,
but he always bobbed around again. At
Truckee he walked out in broad daylight.
They started down the track after him.
He had a rifle secreted out of town and
then he lay in wait for them. When they
approached near enough he opened fire
and put them to fight and hen returned
to town and stopped there that night. He
died in Sacramento six or seven years ago.
This depression is to show the character of
the second Tom Nixon had.
The police were satisfied that the men
had gone about 100 yards from Main street
to fight a prize-fght and hurried to the
scene, but they hurried somewhere else
when they found who the fighters were.
The seconds had agreed upon certain
rules to govern the fight, and they further
agreed to force the principals to observe
them. Time was called, and Tom pitched
in with all tours and the seconds immedi-
ately grabbed, but it was of no use, for he
turned on the three and kicked and
belted them all TO route and run them all
over town.
From Eureka he went to Bodie, which
like getting out of the frying-pan into
the fire. for he was soon heard of again
there. But the camp did not last long,
and he settled down with the times.
Now that he is no more, in justice to the
man, it must be said that he was never
known to cross any man who did not cress
him, or take advantage OF any man in a
hght.-Virginia Enterprise.